Mark: Welcome to another episode of My Wakeup Call. If you’ve listened in, you know that I get to bring you fascinating people who change the world and they honor both you and me with their presence, their insight and wisdom. And I’m really, beyond delighted, to have Keith Ferrazzi on, kind of, makes me want to cry. I don’t know. But I’ve known him for a number of years and–.

Keith: We’ve been through a lot together.

Mark: We’ve been through a lot together and if you don’t know of Keith, you’ve been hiding under a rock and you need to get out of that. He’s best known for his first book, Never Eat Alone, which is still probably the top book on business relating, you know, it’s about, you know back then you could use the word networking and it didn’t, you know devolve into what it seems to be now and I’ve watched Keith’s evolution with great pride and I’m just inspired. And what I hope he’ll do is, he’s what I call a first class noticer, meaning he’s noticed stuff. That’s the mark of a true visionary and entrepreneur, they just see things that nobody else sees and he’s been on a journey and I don’t know if he can connect the dots, but Never eat Alone led to Who’s Got Your Back, led to Leading with Authority, and it parallels his own journey. And maybe he’ll even talk about because I know something about his background, he was a poor kid from Pennsylvania, I remember he used to see all the wealthy people at the country club, and he’d caddy and he’d see them connecting with each other. And then he goes to Harvard and he says, jeez, I think we can connect people. I think there’s a way to connect people and probably if you’re at Harvard, you’re much more intelligent than you are good at connecting. And so, he just saw how to do that, and he just launched this amazing movement and it’s gone deeper from just connecting, which is kind of nice, to having each other’s back. And he has a great new book called Leading with Authority and I think it’s, who’s got your front, meaning, he’ll talk about how do you co-elevate the people around you to step into their future, and you do that together. And but enough of me, Keith, thank you so much for being on man.

Keith: Mark, first of all, anytime I connect with you, I both feel centered and I feel grateful. So, thank you for that. And you want to correct one thing, which is the title of the book is Leading Without Authority, the ironic aspect of that is that too many of us think that we need to lead with authority and I think what you were alluding to, in my evolution, was I used to think that too. And you know, that kid who was born into poverty, father was a steel worker, immigrant Italian family and my old man, I remember and this is a story that I tell in Leading Without Authority, I remember sitting at my dad’s table, I was probably about 8 or 10 and he was still working at the time, but bemoaning and commiserating on the fact that he noticed things about how ridiculously the way of work was. And he would comment at the dinner table and basically bemoan the fact that the managers didn’t give a damn. In fact, sometimes the managers would tell my father, Pete, slow down, you’re throwing off the piece rate. Which basically was, you know, my dad was working like a good immigrant does, and it made others, it made the managers look bad because not everybody was keeping up with that rate, with that peak, at that pace. And I remember that and then not long after that, at the time steel industry was being usurped by foreign imports, ironically, the Japanese imports at the time, were crushing the steel industry and the steel industry crumbled in the 70s. And my dad was unemployed and an entire town, little tiny towns along the Monongahela, were destitute. And people were like us, you know, the only money we had was the graciousness of relatives or friends, or when the unemployment insurance ran out, which it did in a few months, we got welfare cheese from the government, right? And my mom had to become a cleaning lady. I had to go to work at the local country club for the same amount of money, 20 bucks a day that my mom made. So, that’s how I grew up. And it was, as you mentioned, Never Eat Alone was a ticket, when I realized that nepotism didn’t have to be born into, nepotism can be created by the relationships, the authentic relationships you create. I used to resent nepotism; I was jealous of it. And then I realized that the reality was, if people care for you, and you care back, that they opened doors, and so leading with authenticity and generosity became my ticket out of poverty, and into the halls of Harvard and Yale and etc. And then Deloitte, where I became one of the youngest officers in a fortune 500 company at Starwood, etc. And, but that was, that book was powerful and important, about how do you create those relationships, but it was still born from scarcity. It was still born from a young man, afraid of not having enough, because he never had enough. And while my heart was good, my lack of attention to the real intimacy, the real connectedness was absent. And it was probably about that time that I got to meet you. And it was people like you and Maury Schucman and, you know, some of the individuals that shaped my understanding of my clients at the time and friends, made me start to realize there was something more I needed in my life, and I needed some people that really had my back. And that’s when I started researching relationships that were deeper than networks and realize that the deepest relationships that you have with three people in your life predicted your, not just your success, but your happiness. And that’s what was born in, in Who’s Got Your Back. And a lot of people call it 12 steps for the rest of us because it basically, it advocates for us all to have Peer to Peer Support Group, as powerful, as a 12 step group would be, but just for you, around you, in your business and otherwise. But at the time, interestingly enough, I was still at the time coaching executives and executive teams, but I wasn’t drawing the direct parallel between my books and what I was doing for a living. It was odd. I don’t know why. But at the time I was writing Never Eat Alone, sales organizations, high potentials, people were using it. I wrote, Who’s Got Your Back and it was deeply influential to set cultural norms of lots of organizations. But I never really drew the parallel, I don’t know why. And, that started me about eight years ago on a path to write the book that brought it all together, that tied it all together, that made a recognition, that there’s a different way of being in the workplace, that is a pre-destination for your success, but also for your happiness. And I came up with a word along the way and I don’t know if you had remembered this, but this word is a new definition for collaboration and I believe that this is, the word is a new operating system for the way we should live our lives. And I call it co-elevation. Co-elevation, a commitment, a shared commitment to a mission among a group of people, call it a team. And that equal commitment to each other, where the commitment is to go higher together. And I’ll end with this, when I first started writing the book, I started writing another book, similar to the path of Never Eat Alone and Who’s Got Your Back, I started writing a book with the assumption that I felt that every relationship, inside of every relationship was an agreement to be each other’s coaches. And I just didn’t think that most people knew how to do well, I felt that marriages weren’t each other’s coaches in the right way. No, fetching with each other is not the right way to be a coach of another individual in a relationship. I felt that in the teams, I was coaching, I watched how peers complained about each other behind each other’s backs, they do an end run to talk to the CEO behind the fellow executives back, there was no assumption that among the team was a commitment to coaching. And so, I started writing a book about how in every relationship and look at you and I, you and I’ve always been each other’s coaches. Your coaching to me has always been abundantly beautiful and wonderful, and needed to me and I’ve tried my best along the way to be of service to you in the same way. But I realized that what’s evolved is a real, a new operating system, or what Maury might call it, a new social contract, that I am actively coaching into teams in this world, teams like General Motors, teams like Delta Airlines, teams like Verizon, are adopting co-elevation as a mindset, but also a set of practices that I go over in the book, in Leading Without Authority. And Adam Grant recently said of this book, who is just an amazing young man, who was influenced originally by Never Eat Alone, that while everybody has been talking about the future of work, where everyone’s been talking about the need to work across silos and networks, he said that this is the first book that actually defines a practical operating system to get it done. And so, that’s the book that I’ve got today.

Mark: Your book is the rise, is you know, I throw these words around–.

Keith: By the way, you are the best “titler”, you’re the best “titler” that I’ve ever met. You’re 10:43 [inaudible], you’re beautiful, you’re spinning phrases.

Mark: So, here’s a marketing thing and I’ll write this up, Leading Without Authority is the rising tide that lifts all hopes. It really does. Something that I want to share with you, that you’re not aware of, you know that Warren Bennis speak about him frequently, he was my last living mentor. And his mentor was a fella named Douglas McGregor. Douglas McGregor started organizational development. He wrote a book called The Human Side of Enterprise; it was probably the first book in organizational development. And he talked about Theory X and Theory Y and Theory X was, you got to stay on people because they’re basically lazy and you got to stay in them to get, you know, a day’s work out of them. And he said, no theory Y is if you can elevate them, if you can treat them like human beings, who, and you help them get into their future, and you support them, It’s amazing what will happen. And so, as I was learning more about your book, and where you are, it’s just like, what goes around, comes around because this is, and there are many people and certain people listening, they are too young to know that the human side of enterprise in Theory X and Theory Y was huge. It was iconic. And this is the kind of–.

[Crosstalk]

Keith: Maybe this is, yeah, I was going to say like, maybe this is Z because there is a distinction. There’s a patriarchy associated with what, how you just described in 12:24 [inaudible].

Mark: Right that’s right.

Keith: And, even the greatest leaders that I have seen and I’ve coached, have this mindset and burden on themselves, that they’re responsible for the maintenance of energy of the team, they’re responsible for the transparency, right, etc. But where I coach, when I coach teams, is the real art form of a leader in a co-elevating commitment, is to shift the burden from their shoulders to the team itself. The team needs to coach the team, the team needs to hold each other accountable, the team needs to give each other feedback. Now, every one of those elements, there are eight elements of high performing teams that we have created diagnostics to, that are present in this book. But the diagnostic and the awakening are one thing, but it’s the practices. So, just take something as simple as feedback. In the model that you were talking about, X or Y, feedback came from your manager, there was no assumed contract that you had feedback peer to peer. It didn’t need to exist, the world of work that X and Y were born of, was a world of work, where the org chart mattered, where hierarchy was present, and it was useful, right? Where did authority come from? Where did coaching come from, etc. The world we’re working in today is different. The world we’re working in today is a world of networks. It’s a world where you have a goal and then you have a network of people needed to achieve the goal. That network of people needed to achieve the goal is your team. I don’t care who reports to you, the network of people you need to achieve your goal is your team. I don’t care whether or not you have titled authority for the goal. All you need to have is a vision for a goal. And all you need to do is enlist a network of people to achieve that vision. And now, you’re a leader of a team. Now, what’s powerful about that, is that the first person you invite into your team, you’re inviting them into their team. That’s different than the X to Y philosophy. Because the X and Y philosophy, even in the Y humanistic philosophy, you were still the leader at the top of the team, but the reality in the world that we’re living in today is that an individual who wants to achieve a vision for the sake of humanity or their company can invite a group of individuals into that vision, and then go on a path of Co-creation of that vision, and go on a path of Co-creation of achievement of that vision, and go in a path of Co-development, where everybody rises together and learns and develops. It’s a fundamentally different model. It’s a new operating system for work in our network. And it’s not surprising, I think I just got lucky because the guy who wrote Never Eat Alone, who taught you how to network, you now wake up and you are working in networks, where authority control, positional authority, positional control, and org charts are irrelevant to getting the job done. In fact, if you cling to it, you will be clinging to mediocrity, because abundance exists when my team includes people that are outside of my realm of authority and control and in fact could be even outside the company. Peter Diamandis is one of my dearest friends, has become a team member of mine and I am a team member of his, right, I literally have a portion of my brain worried about Peter in his businesses and as he does with mine, and that kind of co-elevating relationship means that we’re on the same team. And my ability to do the pivot that I did over the COVID crisis, and I’ve built two new businesses during this two month period, one, a middle markets business that allows me to serve, not at $90,000 a day of my own coaching, but at $20,000 a day where I have now brought on other coaches, and I can go into the middle market and an info products company that includes a $500 course that can teach any leader how to be a co-elevating leader, right? I mean, I wouldn’t have been able to do that if it wasn’t for people like Jim Kwik, who’s taught me info products and how that works and Peter and they’re members of my team, right? So, it is a new operating system and I really, and thank you, this whole interview has been, not only worth it to see you, but it’s been worth it to be reminded, the X, the Y, but there is something now I’m adding, which is this moving of the authority down into the fabric of the team. And it’s a new model. It’s a new model, because now we’re returning the team into the leaders of the team. And a little tagline I’m using is, “we need to go from overload”, which all leaders are feeling, “to shared load”. And that’s the shift that elevation brings.

Mark: You know, you just trigger something because I’ve been recently doing presentation to entrepreneur CEO groups and what I often hear from them, is they really like the vision and strategy and the bottleneck, is execution because to execute you have to do it through people. And a lot of these people, a lot of these entrepreneurs aren’t that good, and they feel burdened by that. And so, they default to vision and strategy, but I think you’ve just come up with the solution for them to disburden themselves because I will tell you, they’re avoiding the people they should be, because they don’t know how to do it, is felt through the organization. And actually, organizations are, you know, we don’t mean to burden the CEO, the, you know, the entrepreneur, you know, we’re just trying to do our jobs. But, I think your book represents a solution for those entrepreneurs and say, hey, here’s a way in which you can surrender control and being controlling and it’s amazing what will happen if you trust the people in your organization to team with each other, but you got to be willing to trust them because I’m telling you, I’ve done several of these things, and the bottleneck is the execution, we got to do it through people, and we’re not good with people. And I think Leading Without Authority, with what you’ve set up, is, it’s the linchpin. It’s the linchpin into the future, and it will disburden many entrepreneurs, so I’m so excited with what you’re working on.

Keith: Well, and let me say this, I am also, you know me, I still have scarcity in my gut. Right? I wish I could be and I’m, right now, I’m reading A Course in Miracles, Marianne Williamson’s work, associated with that. And it’s so difficult for me to let go and surrender. And I don’t and I believe I’m probably very similar to a lot of the entrepreneurs you’re talking to. And so, what I do in Leading Without Authority, is I give it to you in practicable, baby steps, because I don’t expect anybody to surrender tomorrow when their business and their livelihood and everything that they built, is at stake to a group of people that currently aren’t fulfilling, which you want them to fulfill. So, it’s interesting. Our teams aren’t stepping up, I hear this all the time, “my team won’t step up”. And the reality is, we’re not letting them, we have to acknowledge that. If we’re the leaders of the organization and our teams aren’t stepping up, then we’re the ones that are at fault. There’s a chapter in the book called, It’s All On You and once we recognize that it’s on us, now we start to shift some of that control, that chokehold that we have, on a team’s efficacy, on a team’s success. And you give them little by little movement so that the person you end up coaching is not only the team, but it’s you, in your own letting go in small increments, you coach yourself to let go more and it’s iterative, it’s not all of a sudden, right? Because my job, you know, Mark is, I don’t just write this stuff, I have to coach it. My job is to help General Motors, rebound out of bankruptcy, you know, back in those days, you knew me When we were doing that work, it was powerful work. My job is to serve Delta Airlines through this crisis. So, I don’t have the luxury of being a theorist. I am responsible for putting points on the table with my teams. And I, you know, and it’s working. I mean, these principles of co-elevation, I have a wonderful aerospace company out of Pasadena, formerly out of Pasadena, they moved their headquarters, that wasn’t able to go public, because the team was really not ready. But through our work, in less than a year, they were not only able to go public, but they were able to add 20 points to their stock price once they had and this was unfathomable to the team at the beginning. But once the team started leaning in and trusting the team to be the team–. You know, it’s funny, I’ve gotten to know some folks in sports, and I’m not a big sports person. I like playing it but I’m not a big watcher. I’ve got to know some people in sports and the power about sports is the coach of a sports team couldn’t imagine just sitting around coaching every individual player, they have to watch the team scrimmage. So, you know, and, as I’ve understood, until Jordan started to pass the ball, the team didn’t win. And it’s interesting, the teams don’t do that, though. You know, teams aren’t looking at the team as an entity. I think the team is an entity in and of itself, and the team needs coaching, and you as a leader or a team coach, and we’ve got to begin to coach to that level of co-elevation. And I give you the formula in this book, which is why I’m so excited about it.

Mark: Can I make an observation about your scarcity? Because I’ve known you for a long time.

Keith: Yeah.

Mark: Tell me how this land because I don’t know if you’re, how well you know Keith, Keith deserves to be at peace more than most people in the world for what he’s given. And it’s still elusive at times. When you said the words, I still come from scarcity, I’m thinking of you when you were younger, and you knew hurt and fear, you saw what happened to your dad, you saw that, you know, you had to, you know, live on food, whatever. And my guess is, you made a choice, I need to take control, or it won’t go well, and so I can’t trust the universe. But what’s happened is, having to take control is exhausting over the decades. It’s just pure exhausting. And, as I’ve known you, I think there is a a desire to surrender control, but when the scarcity comes up, you default to, you better control it, or else it’s going to control you. And then what would happen is that would plummet you back into the hurt and fear underneath, I’m going to take control, but as you’ve been through so many things, and if you’re listening in, I think you’re going to relate to this. Sometimes we’re so afraid to re-experience the hurt and fear that drove us to success, but often having to be in control and controlling is just exhausting. But it’s what we know, and I think this book represents really a pivot in which, jeez, maybe I can trust the team. Yeah, you know, instead of having to be in control out of scarcity, if I don’t control it, it will control me, well, maybe I could actually trust it. Wow, that would be pretty good. But when you said this word scarcity, it just hit me in the cheekbones. And you know, because I know 24:57 [inaudible] and I say, jeez, Keith, I felt the pain of that and how exhausting it is and I just love where this is going, in terms of trusting your team.

Keith: And trusting the universe. Okay. I’m probably, maybe I’m a ticker too behind, on my brand recognition, in that I claim that I’m still scarcity oriented, right? I’m probably less so than I’ve ever been in my life.

Mark: Right, good to hear.

Keith: And it’s interesting, you know, I always have this little tactic that I use when I’m meeting new people, I do this thing called a personal professional check in. So, I’ll be having a group of individuals and I’ll say personally and professionally, what are you struggling with? And everybody goes around and shares, more and out of the work that we did around who’s got your back, you have to lead with purposeful vulnerability before you can really connect with people. And sometimes, I struggle with finding what I’m struggling with. And it’s odd, because, you know, financial insecurity, I’ve always had financial insecurity, for reasonable reasons, a long time ago, not so reasonable reasons now. But, you know, like, myself, like many other people, my net worth has been hit by a third, during this crisis. And I’m fine. I mean, I just, I really kind of feel great. And, I mean, that’s been a lot of work recently, to to do that but you’re right, this book has had a lot of impact on me. My team, you know, is closer today than it ever has been. And you’ve been with me at times when, no, I wasn’t living the leadership principles, that I was preaching. And I talked about that, I talked about that in Who’s Got Your Back. I always find that I publish a book and in the process, I reveal myself, in my own head as a fraud for the book that I’ve just published, because I’m not living to it, and then I work my ass off for the next few years to get closer and closer to it. At least I recognize my own fraudulent behavior and I work hard, you know I work hard, to always be a seeker, a better person, a better leader, a better whatever. And this book is probably no different. I mean, I’m not the perfect “leading without authority” leader. But I’m a lot closer than I ever have been. But that’s okay too, because I feel that if this is an operating system, or a value statement, that I will live in co-elevation. And it’s also, I think, it includes my personal life. I’m single now for five years, I don’t know if we caught up on that or not? But I’m single for five years now and I’m not going to get into my last relationship until I really fit to have faith, that I’m in a co-elevating relationship. And that’s different than what I used to do, which is be very comfortable with keeping company, you know, with people. So, I mean to look, it’s a journey and I think through a lot of failures and successes, I’ve learned a lot but also, more importantly, through the successes and the coaching, it’s a lot easier for me to coach teams through this and I used to do it myself. So, through the coaching of teams, I have a lot of these tactics and tricks on how to bring practices in your life, that shift mindset. You know, the old phrase, “you don’t think your way into a new way of acting, you act your way into a new way of thinking”. And I’ve always taken a practice approach in everything that I do, in Leading Without Authority, I give the reader the practices that they can start doing right now, that allow them to see co-elevation occur, like the taste of it, and then want to do more, similar to what I did in Never Eat Alone, with leading with generosity and authenticity and building your network that way.

Mark: And something that may coincide with this, I’ve mentioned to you I have a grandson, I get pictures of him every day, I see him almost every day, so we’re fortunate. And I’m in what I’m doing, and I think it’s a way of trying to heal something in me and I didn’t do with my own children because I was busy going out, earning a living. In fact, one of my kids nicknames for me, when they were growing up, was, “Hi Kids, Bye Kids, Love You, Kids”. But with my grandson, I want to immerse him in Eric Erickson’s basic trust versus basic mistrust. So, I will just watch him, and he will look at something and then he’ll make eye contact with me. You know, is this something neat? Is this something that hurt, am I going to be okay? And he’s not talking yet, he just started walking, and he’s going, ah, ah , but I’ll make this eye contact with him and I look into his eyes and I want to just immerse him in basic trust. Because when you go out into the world with basic trust, you go where you’re looking. When you have basic mistrust, you look where you’re going and it’s a shitty life. I’m trying to immerse him in that, and you can feel it because, in me, because I’m trying to, through him re-develop basic trust, because it’s exhausting to go through life with basic mistrust. And maybe, when you say, you know, maybe that’s what you’re trying to do, is maybe you’re trying to look at the world through the eyes of basic trust. No agenda, no, how can I work this and just say, I’m not there yet either. But I am telling you, as I look into my grandson’s eyes, I’m not I’m going to shortchange him. And it’s like he’s saying to me, was it good that I was born? Yeah. Are you glad that I was born? You have no effing idea. Am I going to be replaced by technology? I don’t know. But we’ll deal with it. But it’s, I’m just trying to bathe him in basic trust, because I just see so many people have basic mistrust, and a plausible life. So, I don’t know if you can resonate with any of that.

Keith: Well, of course, I mean, look I think, as you’re suggesting with your grandson, I think we were all born pure. And, you know, based on what we experienced, and how we experienced it, we then have to, if we’re lucky, we spend the rest of our lives unbundling that bullshit. If we’re lucky, if we’re lucky we do. For whatever reason, I never, I knew that the henx of the bullshit wasn’t something I wanted to live in. You know, that’s what originally made me reach out to you. I mean, I read your book, the original book, and get out of your own way at work, and get out of your own way and I love that. And I just really like, yeah, that resonated with me and I reached out to you and we started a friendship and it’s gone, how many years now? I think we can find a lot of healing in the people around us and you’ve got this beautiful, pristine love bundle of your grandson, that you can both serve and be served, right? I’m trying to do it with a little bit, more of a messy palate, which is your team, right? You’re in the eyes of your team and it saddens me a lot, you know, you and I talked a little bit about some of the journeys that I’ve done. I’ve gone to Peru, experienced in a journey called ayahuasca, which is a native drink that shaman take their tribes through, it’s a vision quest, and it’s very uncomfortable. But it roots out subconscious, brings it up and forces you to deal with subconscious in this journey and it leaves you in a place of resolution, it allows you to resolve things, in a short period of time. That intellectualizing doesn’t have the same impact, although I know you are or have been trying to hack the psyche with some pretty interesting tactics of vulnerability and other things that allow you to do similar things, go into the subconscious, bring it up, resolve it and feel it, like you say. I mean, feel it, as opposed to just understand it or experience it, you feel it and you reprogram. And I think this book would not have been able to be written if it wasn’t for that work is doing. Right, I wouldn’t have had faith and I wouldn’t have had practices and a formula, where I can find co-elevation. Because I wouldn’t have believed, if I didn’t believe I could do it, for myself, I wouldn’t believe that I could do it for others. But I’ve found the path, you know, my faith remains very strong too. I feel that, whatever faith, whatever you use to me, that grounds you and takes you higher. You know, you and I are coming at it from so many different perspectives, you clinically come at it as a therapist, and understand that as a doctor. I’m coming at it from much more experiential, from the business side. But anyway, by the way, I always thank you because our conversations, bring my blood pressure down. Sometimes you brought my blood pressure up in the past, I won’t deny that. But you’re–.

Mark: I remember that meeting too, Keith.

Keith: One? It’s got to be more than one. But, you know, you make me exhale. You know what I’m talking about when I say that. Just for those of you, who may not have heard Mark, when I first met Mark, one of the things he did was hostage negotiations. And what he taught me was, when you’re having a conversation with another individual, the place you need to get them to, is a place where they’re exhaling, and they realize that you care and that they’re listened to, for you to be able to influence them. And that’s in co-elevation, that principle is in co-elevation, from the perspective of you own, whether another person is going to hear your feedback, you need to get them to a psychological state that they don’t feel triggered, right, using the analogy, taking the analogy. Yeah.

Mark: So, I’m going to do a massive plug for your book right now. It’ll be on the podcast, but I’m sending you the video too. Here’s a massive plug for Leading Without Authority, go to your team and ask them, what would be the effect on you, your productivity, your morale, if you could have basic trust of everybody you’re in contact with? What would it mean to you if you could trust your teammates, trust the company, trust the leadership, trust yourself, as opposed to miss trusting? This book Leading Without Authority is the guide to make that happen. And I will tell you, I’m a little bit emotional, there are going to be some people, if you say that, and you say what would it mean to you, if you could develop basic trust? They’re going to start to cry, they’re going to start to cry because they’ve been living with basic mistrust for so long, it’s a monkey on their back. I am telling you. And if you’re listening to me, thank you for trusting me, I wouldn’t mislead you on anything. I don’t do that, Leading Without Authority is your guide to creating a company that resurrects basic trust in the people, in your company and if you pull that off, you have no idea what your company is going to be capable of. So, you really need to check this up.

Keith: I think we should stop right here. I really do. I mean, you’re such a beautiful man and a beautiful soul and your wisdom and your insight and just, you see me, you know, me, you’ve known me for many years. You’ve tolerated me for many years, and I could not imagine a better place to stop this conversation and pick it up, you know, just offline between the two of us.

Mark: Absolutely, absolutely. So, where people can, normally I say, where can people find you? You’re fortunate because, if you just look up Keith Ferrazzi, two Rs, two Z’s, although you should know the name by now, you’ll find all kinds of things that he’s doing, he continues to do. He had told me that Leading Without Authority, he thinks it’s the best thing he’s done, and I didn’t know if he was selling me on it, but I’m sold. It is the best thing he’s done, and you need to check it out. And you need to share with your teams. You need to give your team’s hope, because most of them don’t feel that. So, Keith, thank you for being on. I’m going to go get some Kleenex and if you’re listening in, thank you for, you know, listening in again to My Wakeup Call. I hope this episode particularly not only woke you up, I hope it lifted you up, because a lot of you need that. So, thanks again for tuning in. And it helps if you share this and subscribe and write some sort of comments. It helps the algorithm but that’s all above my paygrade, I don’t really understand it, but it helps if you could do that.

Keith: So, I mean, of course, the book is everywhere, you know, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc. So, Leading Without Authority can be bought anywhere. I started a website recently, just because I wanted to serve the corporations that I serve, and I feel like we’ve been bullshitting about the future of work for 20 years. And the reality is, it’s come, in two months, it’s come, and I kept hearing people talk about, let’s go back to work or when are we going back to work? And I said, no, let’s stop that, let’s go forward to work. And I’ll have a website out called goforwardtowork.com, in the coming week or two. And it’s going to have a lot of best practices associated with, how do we start working in a new work order? But what I have done in the meantime, is, now that everybody is working remotely, there’s a uniqueness about working remotely and I actually feel that today working remotely, we can actually adopt some of the most extraordinary co-elevating behaviors in this medium. So, I had done $2 million of research, funded by Cisco, Siemens communications and Accenture and published 20 some studies in Harvard Business Review. And I put it all at a website called virtualteamswin.com, virtualteamswin.com. And in addition to the book itself, on that, is resources like how do you re-contract with your team? How do you have that dialogue with them, right? So, you asked what kind of resources are available, these are the things that I’m doing right now, to try to bring all of this into practice. And I look forward to seeing people there, you know, like you, they can follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, etc., and engage in our ongoing dialogue. So, Mark, I’m so blessed to have you as a friend, you’ve changed my life, you know that. I mean, there was a pretty dark time in my life, in my personal relationship and otherwise, when the only person I could think of was to call you. And I did and you pointed me to resources as well as were there for me personally, that put me on a different level of trajectory of growth. And I will always be so grateful to you. You’re a real beautiful magician, when it comes to the work here, your words are embracing.

Mark: So, I want to share a secret with you that nobody knows, especially, you’re ready for it?

Keith: Go for it.

Mark: You’re not an imposter.

Keith: You know, thank you.

Mark: You’re welcome. So, again, check him out, and thanks for tuning in to My Wakeup Call and for your support of this podcast, and we’ll be speaking again soon. Thanks, Keith.

What do you say to a group of homeless 10-to-17-year-olds living with their single mothers at one of the largest homeless shelters in the country, in one of the most drug and crime infested parts of Los Angeles?

I thought to myself, “What the heck do I tell teenagers who are living in one of the worst situations imaginable, many personally affected by filth, crime, rape, mental illness and drugs?” I decided to follow my own advice from Just Listen, which has a chapter about calming yourself down, called “Oh F#%^ to Okay.” I reminded myself to first notice…and then just listen.

In this calmer state, the first thing I noticed was the Skid Row section of Los Angeles that surrounded me, which triggered flashbacks of my visit to Mumbai and Delhi years before. It struck me that while the poverty in Mumbai and Delhi easily dwarfed Los Angeles, the Indians had seemed noticeably happier. The people I saw before me were anything but happy, and looked as if they were barely surviving. While I had seen plenty of Indians who were barely surviving, there was a kind of bond there, a deeper connection, that I didn’t see here.

Each homeless person I saw in L.A. was trying to stake out their 10-15 square feet of space, which was marked by an unfolded sleeping bag, or maybe a shopping cart for the more fortunate ones. I didn’t remember ever seeing such fiercely guarded territoriality among the throngs of homeless in India.

As I entered the Union Rescue Mission, it seemed like an oasis in the middle of an entirely rundown and desperate area. Walking down a corridor to the 4th floor Rec Room where I was scheduled to speak, I saw single mothers corralling their children so they wouldn’t wander too far. Early evening was approaching and there was danger everywhere.

I’d arrived early, before their team of impassioned and compassionate volunteers, just as the first few teens were coming in. They seemed well-schooled in etiquette, as each one came up to me, shook my hand and told me their name, some of which I repeated back to them since it was hard for me to understand them.

The entrepreneur and founder of this program, Chris Kai, came in to deliver a brief orientation. All of this was voluntary, he said. Anyone who didn’t want to be there, or wanted to be disruptive, could go back to their rooms with their moms.

As I quietly looked and listened, I couldn’t help but feel the fear, pain and sadness in the group behind their “game faces.” Chris was doing a great job of pumping them up, but I still had no clue what I would say to them when my turn came.

I suddenly recalled a sermon the day before by Pastor Jimmy Bartz at THAD’s, an inclusive Episcopal church with the simple mantra of living in the “God love life.”

He’d shared the story of Anna Runs America, where Anna Judd had run across America to draw attention and support for foundations supporting veterans. Pastor Jimmy had asked Anna how she’d managed to persevere in running literally cross country and not quit. Anna had explained that she’d focus on looking at things she passed as if it were the first time she’d ever opened her eyes and seen anything.

That reminded me of something my late (and dearly missed) mentor, Warren Bennis, used to say: “Try to be a first class noticer.” By that Warren meant that noticing is different than watching, looking and seeing. When you notice something, it takes you out of your internal experience (and anxiety) and bonds you with something outside of yourself that you then become curious about and connect with.

Not knowing where it would lead, but “noticing, listening and feeling my way into these teens,” I began to talk about noticing, and how it can take you away from feeling very upset inside.

I proposed the following exercise: “Close your eyes for ten seconds and pretend you have lost the ability to see. When you open them, feel the excitement as if you are ‘seeing’ for the first time, and then ‘notice’ something you hadn’t noticed before.”

After closing their eyes for ten seconds, they opened them and, one by one, shared something they noticed. One girl said she noticed a crack in the wall she hadn’t seen before. Another girl noticed a clock in the room that wasn’t moving. I also had the six volunteers try the exercise. I asked them if it had taken away some of their upset feelings inside, even if only for a few moments. They all agreed it had.

I then told them that, as a psychotherapist who works with very sad, very frightened and very angry people, I had learned to look deeply into my patients’ eyes and focus on noticing that there was probably something going on underneath what they were saying or doing. I explained that I’d learned to hold onto people’s eyes with my eyes and silently say: It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not going to judge you. Just tell me where it hurts most (or is most scary) and how much.

I told these teens why I’d needed to develop this skill — many of the people I’d seen over the years, especially the ones who didn’t want to live, didn’t have words to tell me what they felt.

I didn’t know what I was going to do next, but this seemed to have taken on a life of its own. I just let it take me where it wanted to.

The next thing I did was look into and lock onto the eyes of ten of the teenagers one by one with the look I described above. When I did that, even with these brief glances, I was struck by the fear, confusion and pain I picked up coming from each of them.

That led me to direct them to do a second exercise. I told them to pair up and look into each other’s eyes the way I had looked into theirs. I told them that I was going to have one person ask the other a particular question, and then I instructed the other person to answer it as honestly as they could. And while they were answering it, I told the first person to look into their eyes with caring as if they were saying, “It’ll be okay to tell me. I’m not going to laugh or get angry at you.” After they did that, they were to reverse roles.

I next instructed the first one to ask their partner, “What’s the toughest thing about your life?”

At that point more than a few of their partners began to cry. The volunteers and I stepped in where necessary to reinforce that it was okay and safe to answer, whereupon several teenagers answered with emotion in their voice, “being here.” I noticed and felt the room flex into a different energy that was calmer, kinder and more caring and relieving.

I went with the flow because something told me inside that we weren’t finished. I next told them they had a homework assignment. I said that when I had first walked into the Rec Room, I’d noticed how many of the moms in the corridor seemed upset or tense.

“Now that you’ve practiced this exercise in here, I want you to go out, and don’t do this immediately, but pick a time when you’re with your mom and say to her, ‘Mom, what’s the toughest part of being here for you?'”

I explained, “Some of your mothers also need to feel relief and will start crying, especially because of how afraid and ashamed they are of being here. Crying will be good for your moms and good for you. And if your moms cry, don’t get nervous. Because you’re actually showing love and caring for them.”

Finally, I want you to let your moms cry and then reach out and hug them and say, ‘It’s okay mom. We’re going to be okay and I love you.'”

That got a lot of the room tearing up, just as it’s doing to me as I share this story with you.

Finally I told them, “For some of you this may be one of the best conversations you’ve ever had with your mom. And for some of you and your moms, it may even change your lives for the better.”

Now here’s a homework assignment for those of you who have read this far.

Reach out to someone you care about who is having a very rough time in their life, look into their eyes with all the love and caring you can muster and say to them, “Mind if ask you a question which is kind of personal, that’s been on my mind lately?” Hopefully they’ll say, “Okay.”

Then ask them, “What’s the toughest part of your life right now?” If they open up, make it a chance for them to get a lot off their chest by just noticing the most emotionally charged words they use: “awful, horrendous, scary” etc. Wait for them to finish, pause for a couple of seconds so they’ll feel what they’ve said has sunk in with you, and keep looking into their eyes with a “I want to know how and what you’re feeling just so you don’t have to feel it alone” look.

If it feels right, you can use “conversation deepeners” (which I also describe in my book Just Listen) like: “Say more about awful (horrendous, scary, etc.)”; or pause after they finish, and in an inviting, empathetic tone just say, “Really…”

If you do the above homework assignment, I hope you’ll register at our site and report back in the comments on what your experience was like, because you have just joined the mission of our global community, Heartfelt Leadership: “Healing the world one conversation at time, by daring to care.”

]]>https://markgoulston.com/healing-the-world-one-conversation-at-a-time/feed/0The Rising Tide the Lifts All Hopeshttps://markgoulston.com/the-rising-tide-the-lifts-all-hopes/
https://markgoulston.com/the-rising-tide-the-lifts-all-hopes/#commentsSun, 31 May 2020 05:03:24 +0000https://markgoulston.com/?p=12546Creating a World Where Nobody Gets What They Want Until Everyone Gets What They Need

This is not socialism. This is not communism. This is humanism.

Given what we’re watching in the world or at least in America, it might be too late, but if we change course, we may still have time.

As I have traveled the world, I have observed that 90+% of
the world want the same things:

Education for ourselves and children to secure present and future employment

An end to homelessness

A healthy planet

In other words, the people of the world get what they need and with that, the possibility of being freed from the shame at turning a blind eye and deaf ear to our fellow human beings.

Sure it might take some adjusting to let go of chasing what people want, but that never led to lasting satisfaction or fulfillment. It only created a voracious insatiable beast that needed to be constantly fed with excitement, entertainment and conspicuous consumption that has made a very small percentage of the world insanely wealthy.

What gets in the way are leaders who foment anger and paranoia towards other people and peoples to secure their power and positions.

The Internet was created not to sell stuff and make a small number of people who lack the capacity to relate to or care about their fellow human beings, but to connect the people of the world so they can realize that the Emperors of the World have no clothes and in the main don’t care about their people.

Certainly, there are exceptions, the Jacinda Ardern’s, the Angela Merkel’s, and several others are out there. However, they are too duty and mission bound to waste their time grabbing headlines and you’ll have to pardon me, but I’m truly at a loss to identify a male leader unless you consider Pope Francis.

If the Internet could connect the people of the world and see that truly 90+% of the world want the above, it could become a rising tide that lifts all hopes.

Are you ready to give up what you want if your fellow human being gets what they need? You might actually be able to look that homeless person on your block in the eye instead of averting your gaze in hopes they don’t catch you in mid-shame over your selfishness.

“It’s when you take something that is already familiar to someone and then repurpose it. When you do that, you increase mental real estate.

“For example, ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ owns the word ‘pirates’ in the mind of kids. Therefore, Disney owns the word ‘pirates’ in the mind of kids. And ‘pirates’ is already an emotionally-charged word,” Tony said.

That concept of “mental real estate” is also an example of the term itself by taking the word “real estate” and adding “mental” to it.

Other examples of it include:

Hit Refresh by Satya Nadella, which takes a tech term and uses it a metaphor for how to grow by not destroying everything from the past, but by just eliminating what doesn’t work and then “refreshing” your organization.

Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg, which takes the term “lean in” as one might do when being pitched a ball, hitting a tennis ball, striking a golf ball, etc. and uses it as a directive to women to lean into their companies and therefore empower and embolden themselves, as opposed to acting like deer in the headlights.

Option B by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant, which uses that metaphor when something like a sudden, unforeseen death of a husband takes away the option A of living happily ever after.

Never Eat Alone by my good friend and colleague, Keith Ferrazzi, which hits a mental real estate winner because the words, “never,” “eat,” and “alone” are all emotionally charged. Put them together and you get more mental real estate.

#metoo. Speaking of women leaning in to make their voices heard, #metoo also serves as a mantra for women to join together and stand up to sexual harassment and abuse.

Facebook originally was a play on “The Face Book” that had been given to all freshmen at most colleges to see who was in their class so they could connect with classmates.

Apple. According to author Walter Isaacson, “On the naming of Apple, Steve Jobs said he was ‘on one of my fruitarian diets.’ He said he had just come back from an apple farm, and thought the name sounded ‘fun, spirited and not intimidating.’” Of course, we customers have allowed it much more mental real estate by connecting in our minds to perhaps Eve and the apple in the Garden of Eden or possibly to die-hard Beatles fans (which Jobs was) the name of their recording label.

Watson. Emulating both Sherlock Holmes’ assistant and James Watson, co-discoverer with Frances Crick of DNA, IBM’s famed computer competed with and finally won over human intelligence as when it beat Gary Kasparov at chess in 1997.

For those of you with some curiosity about how “mental real estate” works at the neuropsychological and AI level, think of terms that become second nature and then instinctual to you. When that happens, you are taking something from your conscious into your unconscious or, with regard to AI, from your working memory into your hardwired, long-term memory.

Once that occurs and something goes into your unconscious, or your hard drive, over time it begins to bond with and mold into your core identity. At that point, you begin to trust it, and so when a little tweak or repurposing is done, it’s more readily accepted than something entirely new.

From a neurophysiological level, when something familiar to you is touched upon, it triggers a slight burst of dopamine, the pleasure hormone. And while you are in a state of temporary pleasure you are more open — and less guarded — about adding something to it. Alternatively, when something entirely foreign tries to enter your mind, it causes a rise in cortisol, the stress hormone, and that causes you to put your guard up.

What’s in a name?

I made use of the mental real estate concept in titling my last book, Talking to Crazy. When I was telling friends that I was writing a book and was going to call it that, nearly all of them smiled (i.e., the familiar factor).

When I asked them what they were smiling at, they almost always responded, “I need that book now because I do that every day!” That title has no doubt contributed to its success.

But not to be outdone by their American publisher colleagues, when the bookwas translated into Russian, it was entitled Как разговаривать с мудаками. And I kid you not, the translation of that is: How to Talk to A—holes. With that title, it has not only had much more mental real estate, but it also went viral.

Gee, I wonder why?

Therefore, when you’re thinking of branding, yourself, naming products and services, or even your headlines for your companies, ask your marketing team, “How much ‘mental’ real estate does that get us?”

]]>https://markgoulston.com/how-much-mental-real-estate-to-you-own/feed/0Memorial Day – 2020 – Take Time to Rememberhttps://markgoulston.com/memorial-day-2020-take-time-to-remember/
https://markgoulston.com/memorial-day-2020-take-time-to-remember/#respondSun, 24 May 2020 20:32:25 +0000https://markgoulston.com/?p=12509

Q: If one picture’s worth a thousand words, what are the following videos worth?

A: A nation’s thanks

Rather than writing about Memorial Day, I thought I’d share some youtube videos that caused me to take time to remember and give thanks.

Whether you are for or against this or any war, I hope you’ll join me in pausing to be thankful to the “all who gave some and the some who gave all” so that people could be free. Neither I nor my children have served in the military, but they and I enjoy freedom because of it.

Since there are more of us and our children who haven’t served in the military than those who now serve and have served, please consider watching any or all of these and if you can, do it with your children who are over the age of 18 so they may appreciate and give thanks to those who have put themselves in harm’s way so the rest of us can enjoy freedom. God bless our men and women in uniform. God bless America. God bless you.

]]>https://markgoulston.com/memorial-day-2020-take-time-to-remember/feed/0As the world turns… and re-opens, all we are saying…https://markgoulston.com/as-the-world-turns-and-re-opens-all-we-are-saying/
https://markgoulston.com/as-the-world-turns-and-re-opens-all-we-are-saying/#respondSat, 23 May 2020 18:40:44 +0000https://markgoulston.com/?p=12499Is give Oxytocin a chance (a.k.a. Can YOU relate?)

Yes, people are chomping at the bit to get outside.

Yes, people are having cabin fever.

Yes, people are becoming irritable and short-tempered at
home.

Perhaps the reason for that is that the world has become
addicted to adrenaline and seeks excitement which is synonymous with an
adrenaline rush. When you are addicted
to adrenaline, over time what becomes more important to you is avoiding the
adrenaline crash. That crash can cause you to become irritable, listless, ADHD
prone (adrenaline is natural Adderall), anxious, hostile and more. Being house
bound can quickly be unexciting and lead to an adrenaline crash.

One of the reasons we became addicted to adrenaline and
excitement and so boredom-phobic is technology and the accelerated
stimulus-response speed it immerses our minds and lives in. That happened because
many of the former and current giants in technology – Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark
Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk – and the many wannabe entrepreneurs who have
wanted to emulate them, love the excitement of tech and AI, but aren’t very
skilled or desirous of intimate emotional connection. Many of them avoid it
like the plague because of how unskilled, incapable and even incompetent they
are at it. And these people can’t stand feeling incompetent.

To such people and the billions of people that are addicted
to adrenaline, emotional closeness, intimacy, compassion, empathy and
especially patience take too much effort and are too b-o-r-i-n-g.

All of those closeness generating experiences are mediated
by oxytocin. Oxytocin is a hormone associated with bonding and closeness and
has been referred to as the “love hormone.” More accurately would be to call it
the “loving hormone,” i.e. something you give to others instead of being only
focused on receiving it.

I think one of the casualties of the re-opening is that we
may miss out on the possibility of flexing back into oxytocin led pleasure
(which is mediated by dopamine) and default back to adrenaline being the main
source of pleasure and dopamine.

Why would we want to do that?

If we bring oxytocin back into our lives instead of just
chasing after the next adrenaline high…

We can recapture joy instead of mere excitement, intimacy instead of intensity, peace instead of exhaustion and perhaps build and a create a life where we have a home instead of just a house.

BTW a good test to see if the above even registers is to watch this rendition of A House is Not a Home from the television show Glee, to see if it hits a nerve with you… any nerve.

A House in Not a Home

A chair is still a chair, even when there’s no one sittin’ thereBut a chair is not a house and a house is not a homeWhen there’s no one there to hold you tightAnd no one there you can kiss goodnight

Whoa, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, ohGirl

A room is a still a room, even when there’s nothin’ there but gloomBut a room is not a house and a house is not a homeWhen the two of us are far apartAnd one of us has a broken heart

Now and then I call your nameAnd suddenly your face appearsBut it’s just a crazy gameWhen it ends, it ends in tears

Pretty little darling, have a heart, don’t let one mistake keep us apartI’m not meant to live alone, turn this house into a homeWhen I climb the stairs and turn the keyOh, please be there, sayin’ that you’re still in love with me, yeah

I’m not meant to live alone, turn this house into a homeWhen I climb the stairs and turn the keyOh, please be there, still in loveI said still in loveStill in love with me, yeah

Are you gonna be in love with meI want you and need to be, yeahStill in love with meSay you’re gonna be in love with meIt’s drivin’ me crazy to think that my babyCouldn’t be still in love with me

Are you gonna be, say you’re gonna beAre you gonna be, say you’re gonna beAre you gonna be, say you’re gonna beWell, well, well, wellStill in love, so in love, still in love with meAre you gonna beSay that you’re gonna be

Simon spontaneous made this video testimonial after I delivered a Zoom presentation to his mostly millennial global sales team who were around the world sheltered in place during the Coronavirus crisis.

Click on link below to view Powerpoint from my Zoom presentation to Ink. If you’d like a similar one for your millennial salesforce, please contact me.

“This didn’t happen. It couldn’t have happened. I can’t believe it happened.”

As one of my patients whose husband and child had been killed in an auto accident explained to me, “It’s like one moment you’re Bambi prancing through the forest and then, wham, your mom is killed by hunters and suddenly you’re reduced to a deer frozen and staring into the headlights.”

If your personality, or even your self, is composed of your thoughts, feelings and actions (some would add to that your spirituality), and their relationship to each other is created and “hard-wired” over time according to how you perceive reality, trauma suddenly and monumentally changes reality to such an extent that your pre-constructed personality no longer applies. At that point you may experience the complete disconnect between your pre-constructed personality and your new reality as horror.

In the state of horror, your thoughts, feelings and actions decouple and uncouple. That may be why we refer to such states as “wigged out,” “losing your mind,” “becoming unglued” and “becoming unhinged.” In that state of feeling disconnected externally from reality, and internally from your prior “normal” self, horror leads to feeling vulnerable. Feeling vulnerable is a very unstable emotion, and unless something intervenes to make it go away, it quickly can escalate to feeling that the next blow will shatter you. This triggers the feeling of terror. Then, terror internally moves very quickly into panic, and then panic pushes you to “fight or flight or freeze.”

Sometimes the shock of it all triggers what is called a “repetition compulsion” an example of which is when spouses and family members go back to the place where a loved one was washed away, and waiting and hoping to see them come back. On a more mundane level, that explains how a three- or four-year-old might keep circling around the escalators in a big store if they have become separated from their parent.

This repetition compulsion is a repetitive behavior built upon magical (wishful to an extreme) thinking that the trauma didn’t happen.

One of the reason people remain stuck in this phase is a deep belief that if it turns out to be a reality, that they won’t be able to tolerate or live with it.

Stage Two: Loss (Depression)

“It did happen. It’s not a bad dream. It’s not going away. I don’t think I can go on.”

Within hours (for the most resilient and most battle worn individuals), or days, or weeks, or never (for those who stay almost permanently frozen, literally in suspended animation), the realization sinks in that life is forever different and never going back to the way it was.

To the degree that you cannot attune, align and reconfigure your thoughts, feelings and actions to a new and different and forever changed reality, you may become and remain depressed.

This may explain the greatly increased death rate of widowers following the death of a wife that they had been so deeply dependent on.

Even though many who have lost so much think nothing–especially talking about it–will help, talking does help. One of my other traumatized patients expressed it best by saying, “Having horror heard helps heal hurt.”

If you don’t believe that, think of an incident of someone drawing you out and deeply listening to you so that you not only vented, but you were able to exhale perhaps after they asked you such evocative questions as:

Tell me what happened.

At its worst point, what happened?

At its worst point, how bad did it get?

I know you feel you can’t go on, but why have you not given up?

The final question helps serve as a transitional link from Loss to Recovery when people hear themselves say and realize why they haven’t given up.

Stage Three: Recovery (Resolution)

“It’s learning to live with life never being the same again.”

This is what a woman whose husband and child were killed in a car accident told me several months after seeing me, and this was something she arrived at on her own.

The woman above was, of course, still deeply sad, but was no longer devastated. Furthermore, the slightest glimmer of life had returned to her eyes when she came in and shared this with me.

She continued:

Life never being the same again doesn’t mean that it is over. It doesn’t mean that I’ll never laugh again, never enjoy being with friends. And even the toughest realization, it doesn’t mean that I’ll never love again, because that is something my husband, and even my child, would get angry at me if I let happen.

As time passes, and if you are able to keep from withdrawing and keep talking (as the woman above did with me and with a support group) about what you’ve lost, your thoughts, feelings and actions will be able to attune and align themselves to the new reality and then configure themselves to each other in a new way that enables you to adapt to the new reality with your entire personality. In essence, talking with others helps you adjust to doing without something you’ve lost.

I can’t take much credit for the woman’s recovery above, since most of what I did was “just listen” to her. She insisted that helped, but also said that the “Seven Steps to Recovery” she had learned from our sessions and trained herself to do also enabled her to finally have the breakthrough above, which involved the Sixth of the Seventh Steps.

The Seven Steps to Recovery is a way to talk and walk yourself through any upset you’ve had, and make things better instead of worse:

Physical Awareness. When you’re feeling in distress after a trauma, think to yourself, “I am physically feeling [what] in my [where in your body].” For example, “light headed and sick to my stomach.”

Emotional Awareness. “And emotionally I feel [angry? frustrated? scared? sad? disappointed? hurt? upset?] and how my [fill in the emotion you just named] is [name the level of intensity]. For example, “scared out of my wits and more scared than I can everremember feeling in my life.”

Impulse Awareness. “And feeling [name the physical feeling] and [name the emotional feeling], and feeling it [name the level of intensity], makes me want to [name the impulse].” For example, “sitting down and doing nothing.”

Consequence Awareness. “If I act on that impulse, the most likely immediate consequence will be ____, and a longer-term consequence will be ____. For example, “I will probably feel even more out of control and even more hopeless.”

Reality Awareness. “While I am holding off (for now) on acting on that impulse, another possible and more accurate perception of what might really be going on is [seeing the world as it actually is can further help you not react to the way it isn’t]. “For example, “my life being forever different doesn’t mean my life is over.”

Solution Awareness. “A better thing for me to do instead would be to [fill in an alternate behavior and what you need to do to achieve those outcomes]. For example, “learn to live with life being never the same again and to start by interacting with (vs. withdrawing) others, comforting each other, thinking together what we can do now vs. focusing on what we can’t and then have each person commit to doing something to achieve our desired outcome.”

Benefit Awareness. “If I try that solution, the benefit to me immediately will be [fill in the immediate benefit]. For example, “I’ll begin to feel more in control and less helpless and even less hopeless.”

If you are a person for whom self-talk does not work (I am such a person), imagine doing the above exercise with someone who cares or cared about you (I imagine my deceased parents and deceased mentors going through the seven steps with me).

Why do the Seven Steps to Recovery work? I view trauma as a horrendous and horrifying event that splits apart the thinking, feeling and acting parts of your personality. When that happens, you feel that the next step will be for you to shatter, or what some patients describe as “fragmenting.” At that point, you begin to panic.

The Seven Steps to Recovery works because it reconnects the thinking, feeling and acting parts of your personality. More than that, it enables you to adapt to the reality of what is, as opposed what no longer is. One patient told me it felt like suturing their personality back together again.

The “tipping point” of the Seven Steps are the Fifth Step, Reality Awareness, Sixth Step, Solution Awareness, and Seventh Step, Benefit Awareness, because those are the three steps that push you perceiving the world differently and into taking positive action. Taking action into life is essential to recovery. It’s only when you take action that you create a new memory. Thoughts thought do not create new memories as profoundly as actions taken. New memories are important in order to dilute out the impact of the horrendous traumatic ones. If you don’t create new memories through action, you can remain stuck.

To help reinforce this, imagine looking at the rings of a hundred year old tree that has been cut. Each ring represents a year. The ring from a year of drought looks different than that of a year of rains than that of a year of floods than that of a year of fires. All put together they give the tree character and each ring is less important than all of them put together which is the life of that tree (kind of makes you wish someone hadn’t cut it).

Applying this to your life, if 2011 is the year of an awful disaster, when you keep acting into life, 2012 could become the year you met the love of your life, had a child, moved into a new home or a job you love. And although the disaster of 2011 doesn’t go away, the life you live after it dilutes its impact on you.

The Seven Steps to Recovery is also a great tool to teach your children to help them overcome setbacks, disappointments and to master stress, and for them to internalize a way of pausing, calming and centering themselves when they hit obstacles later on in life.

As we look out at the current leadership landscape, those three people (even if you disagree with some of their policy decisions) seem at least to us to embody what it means to be the leader we need for these challenging times.

There are a number more that could also be mentioned and we would ask you to think of those leaders you know who are less well known to apply the following criteria to and then to please weigh in on things you would add, subtract or modify in your comments.

We’ve turned those criterial into a process we’ve developed called 360 Degree Aspirational Executive Coaching.

This is different from some of the current 360 degree executive coaching which seeks to improve a high performing, high potential executive by giving him or her feedback for correcting counterproductive if not destructive behaviors as judged by stakeholders.

Rather than having executive coaching assigned to people who may need it, but not want it, when they hear about this, high performing, high potential leaders – who are often following a calling – seek this out because they want to be the best they can be as a leader.

In essence they want to become the leader they would like to have.

It involves “aspiring” to be a leader that engenders in others the following experiences:

Trust: We trust him or her to do what they say they’ll do.

Confidence: We feel confidence in them because they have a track record of making good judgment calls and decisions, getting things done, and that they can and will get things done when in their leadership position.

Safety: We feel safe with them at the top and that under their watch, nobody will be bullied, thrown under the bus and we are not afraid to work for them because of their personality.

Respect: We respect them for their integrity and standing for and standing up for a noble mission and for standing up against greedy, devious, selfish or self-serving people who attempt to detract, distract or derail them from fulfilling their mission.

Admiration: We admire them for how they stand for and stand up against anything or anyone that would detract from, distract from or derail that mission. They have an understated formidability that radiates from them without their having to beat their chests or resort to gratuitous and injurious hyperbole.

Likability: We like them for being enjoyable and enjoying of others, for having a sense of humor and not taking themselves too seriously.

Inspiration: We are inspired by them because of having all of the prior attributes and because they both motivate, pump us up and inspire and lift us up. They give us hope.

When you become such a leader, you not only motivate, but you inspire your people and everyone who is lucky enough to know you. That is because your esteem for them is so important to them and the last thing they would want to do is disappoint you.

Becoming someone other people want to honor will keep them motivated much longer than their doing something our of fear or guilt. We like to call it using a “carrot on steroids” rather than the stick.

If you disagree with the above, how much would you want to follow a leader who triggers distrust instead of trust, doubt instead of confidence, fear instead of safety, disappointment instead of respect, embarrassment instead of admiration, and discouragement instead of inspiration? You might do it for a short period out of fear, but unless abuse is a long term motivator, you’d probably soon lose your willingness.

To quote Maya Angelou, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel,” especially when you offend, insult, degrade or humiliate them.

How do you become a leader that causes your people to feel the above seven feelings? What would cause me to feel those feelings is when I observe the following seven consistent behavioral attributes:

Unflappable: They are quietly formidable and mission centric vs. having personal ego invested in or losing. That mission has to serve all the people they represent. By not ever taking anything personally because they are so mission centric, they never need to act defensively, sullen or reactive in any way.

Present: They communicate heartfelt understanding and are compassionate towards the fear, hurt, insecurity and anger of others so that people feel cared about. However, they remain steadfast in accomplishing the main mission and are able to respectfully but deftly deal with anyone whose personal and selfish agenda might derail that commitment.

Takes charge: Without being controlling they take charge which is based on deeply held values and because of that, people are not afraid of each other.

Knowledgeable: They know what they’re talking about vs. giving pat answers that lack conviction or credibility or worse, shooting from the hip.

Wise: They know what’s important and worth fighting for and what’s less important and not worth fighting for. Their judgment calls and decisions are guided by that wisdom based on experience, knowledge and perspective.

Gracious: They always give credit first to the team that made it happen and always personally take responsibility when something backfires on their watch.

Humble: They are humble by feeling honored, dedicated and duty bound by the responsibility of fulfilling a mission that serves the company and all its stakeholders. They are aspirational – always striving to become even better – rather than personally ambitious – always looking out for what’s personally in it for them. You’d be hard pressed to find any of this contaminated by selfish, self-serving ego. They appear to be driven by a calling rather than a personal agenda.

As with the seven prior feelings, if you don’t think these behavioral attributes are important, consider what they do to your trust, confidence, respect, admiration, liking and feeling Inspired when you see someone being thin skinned instead of unflappable, shut down or attacking instead of being present, abdicating their authority instead of taking charge, full of hot air instead of knowledgeable, foolish/clueless instead of being wise, gloating/mean spirited instead of gracious or self-centered/arrogant instead of humble.

To coach yourself, start every interaction with any person or group of people, one on one with your intention to manifest the seven behaviors and then afterwards rate yourself on how well you manifested those behaviors from 1 (least) to 10 (most). Then pause – no beating up on yourself allowed – and think of what you could have done differently to increase your rating.

Make a note of it so that you have a reminder to try that in your next interaction.

To reinforce these aspirations, reach out to several stakeholders from your work and home and tell them: “I’m committing myself to a program of becoming someone I would want to be as both a leader and a person. Here are seven feelings I want to cause people, including you, to feel towards me and here are seven ways in which I am proposing to act to become that person. If you’re willing, I would like to check in with you every month to see what you’ve noticed in my trying to act in those ways and also offer any tips to do them better.”

You might say that we’re talking about leadership unicorns to be a 7×7 leader, but they’re out there. And there are people who want to become one.

Could one of them be you?

Why not?

What the World Needs Now are Leaders

What the world needs now are leaders, great leaders,It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.

What the world needs now are leaders, great leaders,No, not just for some but for everyone.

Lord, we don’t need another moron,There are problems and crises enough to solveThere are divisions and conflicts enough to mend,Enough to last, till the end of time.

What the world needs now are leaders, great leaders,It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.What the world needs now are leaders, great leaders,No, not just for some but for everyone.

Lord, we don’t need another villainThere is fear and hatred enough to endThere are opportunities and possibilities enough to seizeOh listen, lord, if you want to know.

What the world needs now are leaders, great leaders,It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of

What the world needs now are leaders, great leaders,No, not just for some but for everyone.